Today’s travelers are starting to expect a personalized experience throughout all stages of travel - something that the emergence of "big data" is helping to lead.
Not only is there some degree of expectation, but apparently 74% of consumers feel frustrated when website content is not personalized.
This shows us that in the evolving world of travel marketing, big data must be utilized in order to please (and convert) our target audience.
NB: This is an analysis by Brianna Wenner, marketing coordinator at IcePortal.
Numerous companies are collecting consumer data – past searches, purchases, tracking cookies, loyalty programs, etc. – but the travel industry is still determining HOW, exactly, to use this data.
The initial picture
In terms of hotel visuals, big data needs context.
Rather than attempting to appeal to everyone, your visuals should be specifically targeted towards each particular consumer persona.
Knowing who they are and what they are interested in can help you to streamline your content to pique their interest.
For example, if you’ve gathered data on a particular consumer (tracking cookies, reward profile, Facebook, etc.) that tells you that they have kids and are most likely searching for a family vacation, you wouldn’t want to show them images of romantic dinners and honeymoon suites.
You’d want to show this person images of your property’s family activities or kids’ club.
If you know the age(s), you would even show different family friendly images – from toddlers to teens – there’s a vast difference.
Context can be added to images with relevant Meta-tags or tags. The more specific you get with tagging your images, the more specific of a consumer you will reach.
The bigger picture
This specific, personalized, content will help to convert more lookers to bookers because if done correctly, it should be exactly what they are looking for.
Data from Evergage’s 2017 Trends in Personalization study tells us that 88% of marketers using personalization report a measurable lift in results.
In addition to the benefit of personalization, tags can improve your images’ content score on various OTAs.
A higher content score means a higher page ranking, increasing your visibility to travelers browsing for hotel rooms.
With tagging on OTAs, however, comes the problem of standardization.
As big data becomes more widely used, meta tags will need to be standardized for the best results, just as the same Open Travel Alliance categories are used across the board.
Distribution technology that allows for meta tagging of hotel visuals will give your property an advantage because more of the right type of travelers will be exposed to it online.
If your property has a boosted ranking in OTA search results and is showing personalized images to consumers, expect to see increased bookings and engagement online.
NB: This is an analysis by Brianna Wenner, marketing coordinator at IcePortal.